What’s in My Make-Up Compact?

In a previous post, “Put Your Best Face Forward for Spring,” I recommended the Laura Mercier 6-well Customizable Compact ($10).  Just pop in six of your favorite blush and eye shadow shades, and you are good to go.  No more hunting through your makeup drawer.   I never travel without it. 

Would you like to know what colors are in mine? 

What's in My Customizable Compact? by frenchtouchimage featuring Laura Mercier

Scam Alert – Are You the Target?

Today, we’re going to take a little detour on the road to style, so that I can alert you to an updated version of an oldie but goodie in the ever-expanding world of computer scams.

Last week, I got an e-mail from someone named Dave Wayne.  Mr. Wayne requested information on my image consulting services for his 17-year-old daughter, Anna.  He was in the real estate/construction business in the UK, but his daughter would be staying with his sister in the US. 

Something seemed a bit “off” with the language.  For someone with such an obviously Anglo-Saxon name, it was obvious to me that English was not Mr. Wayne’s native language.  Still, it’s not unusual for me to get inquiries from people from other parts of the US and abroad, who want to book my services while they are in the area, so, I returned his e-mail and referred him to the “Services” page of my website. 

 

Wardrobe Got the Blahs? Let The Power of “3” Work Its Magic!

In the fall of 1998, a new television series aired about three pretty sisters in their mid-twenties who lived in a mansion in San Francisco.  Aside from their obvious good looks, cutting-edge fashion sense and the whole living-in-a-mansion thing, the Halliwell sisters seemed otherwise quite ordinary.  I mean, they had trouble finding and keeping jobs and boyfriends.  What young lady can’t relate to that?  In fact, they were anything but ordinary; in fact, they were the Charmed Ones, good witches who fought and vanquished evil every episode.  Each sister had special powers, but it was together that they and “The Power of ‘3’ ” were unbeatable.  By the following year, every teen-aged girl I knew had fallen under the spell of the Charmed Ones and The Power of “3.” 

The Halliwell sisters’ ability to triumph over evil is just an updated version of the mystical power of the number “3,” the modern incarnation of an all powerful holy trinity in designer duds who comes to the aid of man in his eternal struggle to keep the bad within him and around him at bay.  

But it may surprise you to know just how magical and powerful the number “3” is in the decidedly non-mystical world of our daily lives. 

My Excellent Adventure and How I Survived It

If you will indulge me, I am about to do something I rarely do – I’m about to share something intensely personal with you, my dear Readers, because this week is a week to celebrate and I’d love to include you in my circle of celebration. 

It all started six years ago following a routine diagnostic procedure.  I don’t think I need to spell it out in graphic detail --- O.K., I will --- it was my first colonoscopy, which I should have had at age 50 but had put off and off and off for years.  It was a beautiful June, and my husband and I were in Lyon for the wedding of the daughter of dear friends.  It was the most beautiful wedding I have ever been privileged to attend, but, let’s just say, I knew something wasn’t quite right. 

Things got pretty hectic when we returned home.  Mme Mère needed all my attention following a serious fall while we were away, etc., etc.  Suffice it to say that I finally got around to having that colonoscopy I had been putting off.   The results were not good.  Surgery was scheduled within the week. 

The following is the e-mail I sent to concerned friends when I got home from the hospital. 

My Little White Jacket

Have you taken a good look at the Pantone color palette for this fall?  What do you see….or, more precisely, what do you NOT see?

With the exception of Misted Yellow, Cypress and, perhaps, Aurora Red, most of the color palette draws from the cool colors of summer rather than the warm colors of autumn.  The last time I checked, radiant orchid did not appear in the fall color palette, and we autumn girls are only too well aware that the color orchid can play havoc with our skin tones (i.e., wash us out). 

Still……….there is a cool way to bring the cool tones of summer into our warm autumn wardrobes.  And here’s how….